Citizendia
Your Ad Here

The Atiratra Agnicayana (ati-rātrá agní-cayana "the building up of the fireplace performed over-night") or piling of the altar of Agni is a Śrauta ritual of the Vedic religion. Vedi is the term for "sacrificial Altar " in the Vedic religion. Agni is a Hindu and Vedic deity. The word agni is Sanskrit for "fire" (noun cognate with Latin ignis Śrauta ( Devanagari sa श्रौत traditions are conservative Ritualistic traditions of Historical Vedic religion in Hinduism, based on In Hinduism, Yajna ( Devanagari यज्ञ IAST yajña; also anglicized as Yagna, Yagya or Yadnya This article discusses the historical religious practices in the Vedic time period see Hinduism and Indian religions for details

The entire ritual takes twelve days to perform, in the course of which a great bird-shaped altar, the uttaravedi "northern altar" is built out of 10,800 bricks. The liturgical text is in chapters 11 to 18 of the White Yajurveda; the corresponding exposition of the ritual is in Books 6 to 9 of the Shatapatha Brahmana. The Yajurveda ( Sanskrit यजुर्वेदः, a Tatpurusha compound of yajus "sacrificial formula' + veda The Shatapatha Brahmana (sa शतपथ ब्राह्मण śatapatha brāhmaṇa, " Brahmana of one-hundred paths" abbreviated ŚB

The ritual emerged from predecessor rituals, which were incorporated as building blocks, around the 10th century BC, and was likely continuously practiced until the late Vedic period, or the 6th century BC. The Vedic Period (or Vedic Age) is the period in the History of India during which the Vedas, the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism, were being The 6th century BC started the first day of 600 BC and ended the last day of 501 BC. In post-Vedic times, there were various revivals of the practice, under the Gupta Empire in the north (ca. The Gupta Empire ( Hindi: गुप्त राजवंश was ruled by members of the Gupta dynasty from around 320 to 550 C 4th to 6th century), and under the Chola Empire in the south (ca. 9th century), but by the 11th century, the practice was held to have been discontinued. Nevertheless, a continuous tradition has been found to exist among a few Nambudiri Brahmin families in Kerala, South India. The Nambudiri Brahmins ( Malayalam: ml നമ്പൂതിരി ml-Latn nambũdiri, also transliterated Namputiri, Namboothiri) are the Kerala ( Malayalam: {{Kerala in Malayalam}}; South India is the area encompassing India 's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union

In 1975 Indologist Frits Staal documented in great detail the performance of an Agnicayana performed by Nambudiri Brahmins in Kerala. Year 1975 ( MCMLXXV) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Frits Staal (born 1930 in the Netherlands) is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and South & Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California Berkeley. The Nambudiri Brahmins ( Malayalam: ml നമ്പൂതിരി ml-Latn nambũdiri, also transliterated Namputiri, Namboothiri) are the Brahmin ( Brāhmaṇa, sa ब्राह्मणः is the class of educators scholars and preachers in Brahminical Hinduism. Kerala ( Malayalam: {{Kerala in Malayalam}}; The last performance before that had been in 1956, and the Nambudiris were concerned that the ritual was threatened by extinction. Year 1956 ( MCMLVI) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. It had never before been observerd by outsiders. In exchange for a financial participation of the scholars towards the cost of the ritual, the Nambudiris agreed that it should be filmed and recorded. The ritual was performed from 12 to 24 April, 1975. Staal (1989) bases a general analysis of the similarities of grammar and ritual on this performance. Grammar is the field of Linguistics that covers the Rules governing the use of any given natural language. A ritual is a set of actions often thought to have Symbolic value the performance of which is usually prescribed by a Religion or by the Traditions

After the 1975 Agnicayana, there have been several more Nambudiri performances: in 1990 Agnicayana at Kundoor, and in 2006. Year 1990 ( MCMXC) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar) Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.

References

See also

External links

© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic